Metro Schools targets infrastructure needs totaling $1.15B

Jan. 7, 2014

Metro Nashville Public Schools principals, school board members and central office administrators tour one of several school buildings in need of significant improvements. / Lukas Schulze / The Tennessean

A sign hangs in the corridor of Westmeade Elementary School, where students from six portable classrooms have to squeeze inside the main building during rough weather. / Lukas Schulze / The Tennessean

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Lunch for many at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School means dining in hallways, stairwells and classrooms because of its cramped cafeteria.

At Westmeade Elementary, students from six portable classrooms have to squeeze inside the main building during rough weather.

Additions to both schools are among the top priorities in what Metro Nashville Public Schools officials say is $1.15 billion in infrastructure needs over the next six years. The district received $95 million from Mayor Karl Dean and the Metro Council for that purpose last year — and $293 million in previous years under Dean — but MNPS officials say major facility issues remain.

“It’s a big number,” said school board member Michael Hayes, chairman of the board’s capital needs committee, regarding the “backlog” of projects. He attributed three-fourths of the volume to needed renovations and the rest to expansions to handle a growing district.

On Monday, Hayes, central office administrators and school principals toured a few of the dozen school buildings that Director of Schools Jesse Register’s administration has highlighted for attention from a list that could still change. It comes down to landing funds to turn plans into reality.

Hayes’ committee will vote on a final six-year capital-needs master plan next week. The allocation of dollars for some of the projects wouldn’t come until spring, when Dean and the council consider a capital spending plan for the 2014-15 fiscal year.

Based on talks with the mayor’s office, Hayes said he believes $60 million to $100 million in building upgrades could be included in the next spending plan — MLK and Westmeade among them. “That’s the type of guidance we’ve heard.”

Expansion plans at MLK — which came together after Register’s initial proposal this past fall to eliminate its seventh and eighth grades was roundly criticized — would add 12 classrooms and double the size of a renovated cafeteria. The estimated cost is $6.9 million.

The hope is both to ease overcrowding and widen the pipeline into the popular North Nashville magnet school, where enrollment is likely to swell from 1,195 to 1,250 students next school year. Its capacity is expected to reach 1,500 under the expansion plan.

“We would also be able to have a more traditional lunch,” MLK Principal Angela Carr said, alluding to the size of the existing cafeteria that requires dispersing some students across its campus.

District officials, who have moved MLK’s needs ahead of other schools on its priority list, are considering either expanding the school onto an existing soccer field or purchasing nearby industrial property to allow the soccer field to stay intact.

A proposed $2.5 million expansion at Westmeade Elementary in West Nashville — a project that still requires buy-in from the surrounding community — would add eight classrooms and a new library and replace existing portable classrooms.

“It will bring every child into the building, plus give us a library that is on par with my neighbor schools,” Principal Steve Breese said.

Charter issues

Capital funds are separate from the school district’s operating budget, which Register and the board say is facing a $23 million shortfall because of the rise of charter schools.

Dean, a charter school proponent, has disputed that logic and called for scrutiny of the district’s overall spending. Building needs are viewed independently of that debate, however.

Asked about the prospects of receiving funds for building needs in the next budget, Dean spokeswoman Janel Lacy pointed to precedent. “Every year that Mayor Dean’s administration has issued a capital spending plan, there has been a substantial amount for Metro Schools’ capital needs, totaling almost $400 million since 2009.”

Other schools on MNPS’ priority list that are in line for potential building expansions are Bellevue Middle and Glencliff, Glenview and Ruby Major elementary schools. Renovations are eyed for Bordeaux Elementary and Whites Creek and Hume-Fogg high schools. Officials are looking to construct a new building for Tusculum Elementary, builda new elementary school in the same area and buy land for a new elementary in Cane Ridge.